Shakin' Street — A Parkinson's Blog

“Life is short. Buy the tickets.” — Author unknown

We almost booked a trip to Japan last week.

Had it all planned — we’d been amassing credit card points for years, and that would cover the airfare. Cash money was set aside to cover hotels, entertainment and whatnot.

All we had to do was go online and book the airline tickets.

Then the stock market tanked — you may have heard about it. And I learned what retirement and Parkinson’s have done to my risk tolerance.

During the financial crisis of 2007-2008, the value of my 401(k) dropped significantly when the market crashed. At least I assume it did — I never looked.

Once a month I’d take my Fidelity statement out of the mailbox and put the envelope — unopened — in a drawer. Based on the advice of people I trusted, I left the allocations alone and continued shoveling money into my 401(k).

And we did everything we’d planned to do, including a trip to Vietnam.

I was in my 40’s and had plenty of time to earn more money, and for the market to bounce back. Both of those things happened.

I did the same thing in 2020 — left my money in the market, continued maxing out the 401(k) deductions, and trusted the market to come back. I had just turned 60 and assumed I had seven or eight working years left.

It turned out I had four years, but I got away with it.

This year’s crash was different for me, and I got spooked. There are two big differences in 2025:

1. I’m retired, and not earning money anymore. During the Great Recession and Covid, I was a revenue source for Bernstein Worldwide. Now I’m an expense.

2. Depending on how this Parkinson’s thing goes, I could turn out to be a major expense.

So when the time came to book airline tickets for Japan, I froze. Even with the flights covered by points, this trip represented several thousand dollars out of pocket.

It’s fair to say I don’t have much faith in the current administration’s ability to manage the economy, Social Security, or Medicare, so my perceived safety net had some perceived holes in it.

Parkinson’s gave us both reasons to pull the trigger — I have the ability to travel now, and there’s no guarantee of how long that will last — and reasons to sit on our wallets.

So we dithered. During our Dithering Period, United Airlines raised the price — it now requires more points than we have to get the tickets.

We scrambled and found an alternative Air Canada itinerary where the math worked. In the time it took to convert those points into Air Canada miles, those tickets sold out.

So Japan’s not happening in May. Maybe we’ll go see the Oregon Coast.

Looking back on the whole process, I wish we’d pulled the trigger on the original plan. It would have been expensive, but that (probably) doesn’t mean we’d be living under a bridge afterwards.

Before Parkinson’s, I’d have done it and figured the rest out later. This time, I hesitated, and other people with more confidence will enjoy the trip we would have taken.

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Bonus for Those Who Read to the Bottom

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A Public Service Announcement from 1969. My wife, who was in grade school at the time, remembers every word of this song. Don’t forget: “If you need help, see a doctor.”

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A great take on the theme from “Get Smart.”

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Some movie themes are catchier when played on toy instruments.